The Texas summer heat is still rolling, but alas our survey program has ended! Stacy, Allison and I have had a busy last few week, and still have some work to do to finish up, and then we shall sadly be going our separate ways. We’ve worked really hard all season but had such a good time! We finished our last hitch of surveys fairly smoothly, with only a couple troublemakers in the survey line and met some great locals at our parks. Together, the Texas and New England team completed 5,696 surveys!
For one of our conservation projects this hitch we had the opportunity to work on a two houses for Habitat for Humanity. We spent the day painting the siding for the two different houses. We worked with the ladies who were actually going to be moving in to the houses, and they were very excited and thankful that we were there to help. It was a hot day but we got a lot of work done and it felt good to help these ladies with their houses and contribute to our community. Allison and Kim spend the second half of the conservation day touring the Waco Mammoth Site, one of the most unique natural history sites in central Texas!
We spent our second conservation day cleaning one of our favorite survey parks. Stillhouse Hollow Park has a beautiful shoreline, one that is an island when the water is at normal levels, but right now is quite low and is more of a peninsula. We walked around it and picked up all the trash, which included shoes, beer cans, and some pretty questionable debris. All together we picked up 3 bags of non-recyclables and 5 bags of recyclable materials.
Tim and Adam up in New England finished up their surveys already and have packed up, and I shall be packing up as soon as I finish writing :-). It has been a great summer, and I feel like I’ve learned so much. Most of all, the people I’ve met in this program will stay with me forever.
A special thanks to everyone that has made this such a successful season for the Texas/New England team! Most notably our very own Man God, Alex Olsen, whose support, guidance, and infrequent human hazard moments we could not have lived without. We would also like to extend our gratitude to SCA and ACE staff, our wonderful conservation project partners, some great rangers that checked up on us when the surveys got tough, Kathy Perales and JJ for being such gracious hosts, Meredith and Dena, and especially all the members of the ACE VUS teams and Project Leaders for giving us the best group of coworkers and friends we could ask for, we love you guys!
Thank you all for a great season!
